Lost, perhaps, in the wake of the Ohio State Buckeyes winning the college football playoff last Monday is the story of the late Jim Camp, a football player for the Buckeyes in the 1960s.
Many years after his gridiron career ended, Camp went into business and eventually became known as “The World’s Most Feared Negotiator.” Yet, Camp easily recalled the biggest negotiating mistake of his career.
Having played for the legendary Coach Woody Hayes, Camp was back in Columbus over the holidays—he puts it around 1971 or 1972—and went to visit Coach Hayes.
“Let’s go to lunch, Jim,” said Coach Hayes.
“Okay Coach, let’s go,” said Camp and Hayes took him to Len Immke’s Buick in downtown Columbus, a car dealership that held a restaurant inside.
“Now it’s December, it’s cold, and we’re standing outside in a line of people around the block,” recalled Camp.
Inside, it was a basic restaurant, but a “real jovial big guy with a white apron in there flipping hamburgers” was making most of the burgers for take-away. Camp gets his burger and sits down with Coach—likely the most noticeable man in Ohio—and the fellow with the white apron comes over to chat.
Coach Hayes told the “jovial big guy” that Camp was a former ballplayer of his and about to come off active duty in the military as a jet fighter pilot, and when he did, he was going to California to get started with business.
“Jim, I’d love to have a young man like you in the organization,” said the hamburger man, who was in the process of building about 40 more of these restaurants around the country. “Why don’t you get $80,000 together and I’ll sell you the franchise for California?”
At the time, Camp’s military salary was $5,500 per year. He couldn’t figure out how he was going to come up with $80,000!
Camp said that, at the time, he didn’t have the breadth or thought process to think about “who can I get to join in with me?” or “how can I do this?”
Instead, he settled for the, “Gee, I can’t do that…” approach and thanked the man in the white apron, who continued the negotiation.
“Well, if you can get that together, I can teach you how to do this.” But the young Camp lacked vision.
He said that he hadn't the foggiest idea on how to syndicate capital. Plus, he had not cultivated any mentors who could do anything in the way of helping him out.
“I didn’t have the skill,” Camp remembered. “I didn’t have the fortitude to go to the banks or to anyone else or to bring a group of people together.”
Camp figured if he couldn’t see the vision, mentors couldn’t see it either. For his one great mentor, Woody Hayes, was not a business man. He was a football man.
But as a last shot, Camp asked his father for the money. His dad just laughed.
“You’ve got to be kidding. Our whole estate is not worth $80,000.”
Camp also remembered his father saying he was “absolutely convinced that there was absolutely no future in hamburgers,” because of all the other fast-food chains popping up at the time.
Well, the jovial big guy in the white apron turned out to be Dave Thomas and the franchise opportunity Thomas presented was for Wendy’s Hamburgers for all of California. It could’ve been Camp’s for just $80k.
Three years later, the franchise rights sold for $53 million!
Meanwhile, Len Immke, the dealership owner, put together a group of investors himself. Immke's group bought up the franchise rights for at least 15 other states.
Wendy’s is now, of course, a household name.
Wendy's also made some people a lot of money. Those with vision.
For more on Jim Camp, check out our resource page:
As always,
Brian
